Recently, mobile phone networks have begun to take advantage of newer protocols and technologies developed on Internet Protocol (IP). The Long Term Evolution (LTE) protocol, which specifies both a core network architecture and an air interface for mobile devices, leverages an all-IP architecture to provide both data and voice. In the LTE architecture, wireless base stations, known as eNodeBs, provide access to mobile devices, known as user equipments (UEs), and utilize backhaul connections to a telecommunications operator's core network, which are typically wired connections.
Mobile operators have also sought to provide broadcast technologies to users, such as live television broadcasts directly to mobile devices. In the past, radio frequency broadcasts of television were received directly by many user terminals. However, the use of an all-IP network involves encapsulating data into packets, each of which has a destination, thus providing a point-to-point network instead of a broadcast network. Providing broadcast, multicast, and point-to-multipoint features on an IP network, therefore, is challenging. The LTE standard includes a standard for providing broadcast and multicast over IP, known as evolved multimedia broadcast multicast services (eMBMS). This standard is provided in 3GPP technical standards (TS) 22.146, 22.246, 23.246, 25.346, 25.992, 26.346, 36.300, 36.440, 43.246, and others. Each of the above standards documents are hereby incorporated herein in their entirety.
In a related technology field, it has recently become possible to provide 3G and 4G cellular connectivity via mesh networks, in which each node of the network provides routing capabilities for the network. Mesh networks provide greater resiliency, shorter setup time, and greater flexibility. However, since the routes used for delivering packets to each node are dependent on transient links between mesh nodes providing broadcast, multicast, and point-to-multipoint features on an IP-based mesh network entails additional challenges.